Project Cars struggling on Wii U admits studio boss
When Project Cars for the Wii U was delayed everyone feared the worse, cancellation. Now another nail in the coffin of Wii U version of Project Cars is possibly being prepped.
Developer Slightly Mad Studios haven’t given an update on the game since the delay, until today where studio head Ian Bell has posted on the game’s official forum. It’s not terrific news either.
Bell says the Wii U version of the game “running at about 23FPS on the WiiU”. That’s also only at 720p resolution. The team are hoping that new hardware will be announced at E3, hedging their bets by not cutting down the Wii U version of the game and waiting things out.
The team don’t want to work on the game, get halfway through finishing and then have Nintendo announce a new console. However as we know Nintendo won’t be having any new hardware at E3, not the NX and not even their smartphone lineup.
Project Cars was originally a crowd-founded title and was promised a Wii U version from day dot. The message from the team since then has been that everything was rosy with the Wii U version. Obviously its not quite going to the way things were planned, then again either has the Wii U.
What do you think Slightly Mad should do, cut down their game to squeeze it onto the Wii U or wait it out and see what Nintendo has in store (even if it won’t be at E3)? Let us know the comments below.
Slightly Mad Studios was contacted for comment but did not reply in time for deadline.
Okay so its running at 720p, I get that. But why dont they just drop the polly count on some items? Trim back on some of the settings? A few tweaks would obviously get it up above the 30fps (although im sure they are aiming for 60). Take out more graphical options and give users the choice between a 30fps or 60fps with a lot of graphics turned off.
Unfortunately I don’t think they will bother, they have to look at the return on investment of coding hours. I don’t think it would have sold many copies on Wii U anyways and it will be a lot less now that it has been confirmed it will be a gimped version if it even does see the light of day.
It wouldn’t surprise me if it has to do with the physics engine more than the graphics — a google search of “Project Cars Gameworks” or “Project Cars Physx” will reveal that the physics engine is so deeply integrated into the game that there’s only so far that they can dial it back without it being a completely different experience.
Even PC gamers are having some issues with this since the entire physics engine is built around nVidia’s Gameworks library and AMD users are struggling. I can only imagine how much the Wii U would struggle, too…
TL;DR– if they cut any more back it would probably not even be the same game…
Let’s face it, when this game was delayed, it’s fate was sealed. As with Watch Dogs, who wants a sub-par version of a game months after it’s release? And you wonder why 3rd party games suffered on the Wii U…